Hungary approves withdrawal from ICC over ‘politicized’ stance against Israel, Gaza war

During Netanyahu’s recent visit to Hungary, Orban said the ICC is “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

By Ailin Vilches Arguello, The Algemeiner

Hungary’s parliament approved the country’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its “political” stance against Israel and the war in Gaza, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto announced on Tuesday.

“With this decision, we refuse to be part of a politicized institution that has lost its impartiality and credibility,” Szijjarto wrote in a post on X.

Hungary’s withdrawal from the ICC will not take effect immediately. Under the Rome Statute, the international treaty which established the ICC, a country’s decision to leave the court becomes official only one year after formally notifying the UN Secretary General. Until then, Hungary is still legally required to cooperate with the court.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar praised Hungary’s move, calling it a “clear moral stance.”

Earlier this month, Hungary announced its intention to leave the ICC during a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Budapest for a four-day trip.

Despite Hungary’s status as a signatory of the Rome Statute, Netanyahu was not taken into custody upon his arrival in Budapest, defying an ICC arrest warrant against him over allegations of war crimes in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been fighting Hamas terrorists since the latter’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of the Jewish state.

After the ICC issued the warrant against Netanyahu, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban rejected the decision by inviting the Israeli leader to Budapest and accusing the court of “interfering in an ongoing conflict for political purposes.”

Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary was his first trip to Europe since the ICC issued the arrest warrant against him last year.

During a press conference, Orban said the ICC is “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

“I am convinced that this otherwise important international judicial forum has been degraded into a political tool, with which we cannot and do not want to engage,” Orban said after meeting with the Israeli leader earlier this month.

At the time, Netanyahu commended Hungary’s decision to withdraw from the ICC, calling it a “bold and principled action” as “the first state that walks out of this corruption and this rottenness.”

“The ICC directs its actions against us fighting a just war with just means,” Netanyahu said. “I think [this decision will] be deeply appreciated, not only in Israel but in many, many countries around the world.”

Saar also praised Budapest’s decision, highlighting the country’s “strong moral stance alongside Israel and the principles of justice and sovereignty.”

“The so-called ‘International Criminal Court’ lost its moral authority after trampling the fundamental principles of international law in its zest for harming Israel’s right to self-defense,” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.

In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and now-deceased Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.

The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which until a recently imposed blockade had provided significant humanitarian aid into the enclave throughout the war.

Israel also says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, despite the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s widely acknowledged military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.

After the ICC’s decision to issue the warrants, several countries, including Hungary, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, France, and Italy, have said they would not arrest Netanyahu if he visited.

US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.